The Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer is expected to admit to conspiring with the Trump Organization and Trump Payroll Corporation in a criminal tax fraud scheme while head of the company’s finances at a Manhattan court hearing on Thursday, the Daily News has confirmed.
Allen Weisselberg is expected to criminally implicate Trump’s family real estate business when he pleads guilty to felony tax fraud charges, a source familiar with the matter told The News on Wednesday.
The Trump Organization’s former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg (John Minchillo/AP)
As part of the CFO’s plea deal — for which he’ll serve five months max on Rikers Island, the source said — Weisselberg is expected to agree to testify against the Trump companies if they choose to go to trial in October, and he’s called as a witness.
Former President Donald Trump has not been named as a defendant in the Manhattan district attorney’s case, which stems from a broader probe into his business practices. Weisselberg’s plea agreement, whose terms were being finalized Wednesday, contains no provision relating to cooperating against Trump nor “anybody with the last name Trump,” the source said.
Weisselberg, 75, who once referred to himself as Donald Trump’s “eyes and ears,” refused to flip on his ex-boss for almost a year as the DA investigated his business practices. Prosecutors indicted the CFO on felony tax fraud charges after it became clear he wouldn’t cooperate.
The 15-count indictment a grand jury returned against Weisselberg in June 2021 accuses him of dodging income tax on more than $1.7 million in lavish fringe benefits. That included private school tuition for his grandchildren, sleepaway camp fees, luxury car rentals, and a rent-free apartment overlooking Central Park for his son Barry Weisselberg’s young family from 2005 to 2011, prosecutors allege.
Donald Trump (left) and Allen Weisselberg, his then-chief financial officer, in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, on Jan. 11, 2017. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Much of the evidence investigators obtained against the Trump accountant came from his estranged daughter-in-law, Jennifer, who provided the DA with a caseload of documents from her divorce by order of grand jury subpoena in April 2021. Her ex-husband, Barry Weisselberg, also worked for the Trump Organization, managing its cash-only ice rink and carousel in Central Park for almost two decades.
“I had absolutely no idea that they were criminals. I would not have married Barry at all,” she told The News after handing over the records.
Weisselberg is expected to admit to his alleged crimes before state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan on Thursday.That could have potentially calamitous implications for the Trump family’s real estate business.
“If this is true, it’s a devastating blow to the Trump Organization,” said Daniel R. Alonso, a white-collar defense lawyer, and former deputy to the former Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr., who launched the office’s Trump probe.
“It would make it a relatively easy case to prove if you have a high managerial agent on the stand saying, ‘I’m guilty.’ That’s enormously helpful to the prosecution.”
Hilary and Allen Weisselberg in the Oval Office at the White House.
Trump could still be charged in the investigation. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who inherited the probe when he took office on Jan. 1, has said he will announce his decision on whether to indict the former president when he makes up his mind.
Trump Organization lawyers Alan Futerfas and Susan Necheles did not respond to requests seeking comment, nor did a company spokeswoman. Weisselberg’s lawyer Nicholas Gravante declined comment; his lawyer Mary Mulligan could not be reached. Manhattan DA spokeswoman Danielle Filson declined to comment.
Copyright © 2022, New York Daily News
Copyright © 2022, New York Daily News